"Well, I feel like pickin' a fight...with anybody who claims they're right...all the preacher men, the politicians, all the critics and the things they write..."--Bob Walkenhorst, The Rainmakers "Reckoning Day" (1989)

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

No, it's NOT o-bee kay-bee...

Dear MISTER Cosby,

When Michael Jackson died six years ago, I didn’t really mourn over his passing much. You know why? Because to me, MJ was already dead. The Michael Jackson whom I knew and enjoyed—that good-looking black guy that I grew up listening to on AM radio when I was a kid who could sing and dance his ass off—he’d been dead to me for almost 20 years. Long about 1990 or so, Michael the suave and talented performer was replaced by this creepy fey-looking pale-skinned crotch-grabbing hypochondriac white zombie clone named Jacko whose nose kept falling off and who preyed upon unsuspecting little boys and got involved in sham marriages and kept his (alleged) offspring’s faces shrouded with scarves and nearly dropped one of them off a balcony and danced around on limos in front of district courts and such.As one of your famed comedy routines once went, MISTER Cosby: “I told you that story to tell you this one...” And if I may borrow from another routine, as your wife once said to you in your bit about belching nasty gas, “You’re dead! You passed away a long time ago, but somehow you’re still upright!” More on your moron wife in a bit, but the Bill Cosby that I knew and loved and grew up with is now deceased—he’s actually been dead and gone to me just about as long as Michael Jackson has. That lovable rubber-faced father-figure who was such a brilliant comedic storyteller and brought to life such characters as Fat Albert, Old Weird Harold and your brother Russell and lampooned trips to the dentist, chocolate cake for breakfast and natural childbirth, among other things—he’s as dead as Mel Gibson’s movie career and has been replaced by this scruffy, unshaven moralizing perverted philanderer clone in dark sunglasses named MISTER Cosby. That’s what you’re called now, right—MISTER Cosby? No more just plain “Bill” or “Cos” for you, huh? At least now I know why you had the cojones to be listed in the closing credits of “The Cosby Show” as “Dr. William H. Cosby, Jr., Ed. D.”—you not only played a doctor on TV, but you played doctor with all those women, too, didn’t you? [NOTE: I was never impressed by that “esteemed” designation anyway because a doctorate degree in education has all the value of a DEVO hat—sort of on a par with my BA in Communications Studies, but I digress.]Good gravy, dude—I had nearly all those ‘60s/’70s Bill Cosby records memorized verbatim, and even had the temerity to perform your “Noah & The Lord” bit with a buddy of mine in 7th grade speech class—and fucking nailed it, too! “Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids” was a Saturday morning staple for me, as well--it was a clever show that got its point across without being preachy or losing its cool, and I’d like to think I’m a slightly better person for having watched it. “The Cosby Show” was pretty damn funny too—for the first couple seasons, that is, before you got all uppity, preachy and righteous with the whole “black consciousness” thing by featuring twin babies named Nelson and Winnie and had this never-ending parade of elderly jazz musicians posing as Dr. Huxtable’s relations, along with other trite gambits. And how come the show never had any white people on it? Other than that dumb chubby white kid that never uttered a word (Rudy’s buddy), you gonna tell me there were no other Caucasians in that upper-crust neighborhood the Huxtables lived in? Uh-huh…[ANOTHER NOTE: Something ironical about the “Noah” thing: If I were in 7th grade today and attempted the same material in class, the school probably wouldn’t allow it because of all the religious connotations—pretty damn ironic considering I was already an atheist even then, yet willingly wanted to perform said skit anyhow.]Anyway, I’ve decided that your comedy material was just too damn funny and all those fond memories are just too good to ever disown, therefore I’m not burning all my Cosby records and CDs in effigy (not my style, anyway), but instead, my internal mortician, Dr. Goodbury, has officially declared the original Bill Cosby dead, MISTER Cosby. This is the only way I can think of to reconcile all those memories and not associate them with the pathetic (and unrepentant) lying sack-of-shit sexual predator you’ve apparently devolved into.[YET ANOTHER NOTE: I chose that album cover photo intentionally for this piece, for obvious reasons.]Where in the fuck did you go astray, buddy? I honestly tried to give you the benefit of the doubt as long as I could all these years until the allegations against you started accumulating because I truly didn’t want to believe it. I also brushed off all the stories about you merely cheating on your wife back in the ‘90s (without drugging anyone). While I certainly don’t condone that sort of behavior, it’s still par for the course in Hollywood, and you sure weren’t the first (or last) to do so, although it definitely makes all your moralizing about family values and such ring awfully hollow now. Who the hell are you to be telling all these homeys out there to pull their damn pants up when you don’t seem to be able to keep your own up? And who were you to ever criticize the likes of Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy for the lifestyles they led or for using profanity in their stage acts? Neither of those guys were/are angels, but at least neither of them ever (to my knowledge) resorted to the sort of low-life mongrel behavior like you’ve engaged in.And what does it say about you that you have to get some poor woman fucked-up out of her mind just to fuck you? Is it because you’re hung like a Chihuahua and don’t want them to notice? Never mind—I don’t want to know. What I do know is you’re just a dirty old turd who should be rotting in prison somewhere with the likes of Jerry Sandusky. Furthermore, asshole losers like you are just another reason why women don’t trust single guys like me, even though my intentions are strictly on the up-and-up. I can’t say I blame them, either, thanks to excrement like you…“You don't just meet Camille Cosby—you experience her. She exudes the kind of splendor attendant with royalty. Even hearing her name—Dr. Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby—makes you think, I want to be like that.”—Oprah WinfreySpeaking of women, your wife is a brainwashed (or brain-dead) idiot for continuing to support you—and so is Oprah for making a statement like that, too. Camille should’ve kicked your wayward lyin’ ass to the curb decades ago, but I guess she just can’t bear to part with all the bling she’s become accustomed to by way of being Mrs. Bill Cosby, huh? And then she sits there saying these women WANTED the drugs you provided them, so that made it consensual. Riiiiight. Even if what she says is true, that still doesn’t excuse YOUR behavior whatsoever!! I can’t even imagine how embarrassing this all must be for your four daughters. In spite of it all, by the way, I’m still sorry you lost your son—I felt like I knew him, in a way. Then again, I felt like I knew you, too, but I suppose not...Lucky for Ennis, he’s not around to witness your colossal fall from grace, MISTER Cosby, because you will now go down as the Joe Paterno of stand-up comedy and television. While Paterno wasn’t actually the perp in his situation, he was an enabler that allowed unspeakable things to happen even though he was totally aware of them, and just like you, MISTER Cosby, he was so arrogant that he thought he was untouchable. Guess again, asshole. As my man Lemmy from Motorhead sings, “Just ‘Cos (pun intended) you got the power, that don’t mean you got the right.”In closing, let me just quote your brother Russell from the cartoon show, “You’re like school on a Saturday—NO CLASS!” Rot in hell—you GUNKY!Sincerely,Your ex-fan Brian